Merry Me

by C.R. Jane

“Natalie, I love you. You’re my girl. My soulmate. People say you can’t meet your forever person when you’re young, but we know that’s not true. You’re my everything. I don’t care about any of that Hollywood crap. I care about you.”

“This isn’t over; we’ll never be over,” as he ran after the car. It was over. Even if it felt like I was dying as I drove away. Even if I cried the entire drive home and then for days and weeks after. He went west the next day—to bright lights and red carpets and dreams so big they barely fit inside movie screens. And I stayed. Quietly. Hollowed out. Pretending I hadn’t just let go of the only real thing I’d ever felt.

People said I’d move on. That I was young, that I’d fall in love again. But I knew better. What we had…that kind of love didn’t come around twice. And I was the one who’d let it go.

This time, I wasn’t giving her space to run. I wasn’t letting her talk herself out of us, out of what we had. This time, I was going all in. I’d already lost her once. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

Not when I’d waited this long. Not when every part of me still wanted her. This time…I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Hi,” he said, extending a hand like we were grown-ups meeting for a business deal. “My name’s Easton Maddox, and I’m going to marry you someday.”

“And how beautiful you look. I’m definitely noticing that,” he muttered suddenly, a pained expression crossing his freakishly hot features as he took me in. “Pretty hard not to notice that when you’re still the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen.”

But sometimes loving someone means letting them fly.”

“But we are not doing the thing.” “What thing?” “The thing,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “Where we rehash old memories or talk about what we’ve been up to the last couple of years.”

“You mean the last twenty-three months, twenty days, and twelve hours,”

“How did you know that I haven’t been paying tuition?”

“Because I paid for it, obviously,”

Easton. The one who used to tuck my hair behind my ear and say he wanted to know all the ways I was broken so he could love every single one of them.

“You should know me better than that to think that just because you said you were done…that it meant I was done too,” he

“Why can’t I stop thinking about you? Tell me when this is supposed to leave my system, Natalie, because fuck knows I’ve tried.”

“You can pretend this means nothing,” he panted, leaning over me so that his mouth brushed my

“You can lie to yourself all you want. But you’re mine, Natalie. You always have been. And I’m not walking away this time.”

“Because I promise, Nat. No matter what happens, I’ll find you. Always. Even if we’re on opposite ends of the world. Even if we lose touch or get lost or…or hurt each other. I’ll come back. I’ll always come back to you.”

real love isn’t a leash. It’s a lantern.”

“You’re tattooed on my memory. You’re not chemistry. You’re gravity. You are the standard. The girl every

other girl has failed—and will always fail—to be.”

“I’ve changed my

“About what?”

“You’re not just my girlfriend, Nat.”

“You’re the love of my fucking life.”

“Marriage begins in the quiet spaces. In the stolen glances. In the hands that reach out even when the world is loud and complicated and messy.”

“I love you.” “Forever,” he said, pulling me in, his voice fierce and full. “Every sky. Every season. Every version of us.”